

APRIL 22, 1915. 



The Florists' Review 



15 



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SEASONABLE nr 

 fg SUGGESTIONS 



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Nephrolepis. 



The present is a good time to in- 

 crease the stock of any of the nephro- 

 lepis family. The best of all is still 

 the old Boston, the sales of which prob- 

 ably equal those of all other members 

 of the nephrolepis family combined. Not 

 only is this a good fern for the house, 

 corridor or piazza, but it can be ad- 

 vantageously used in vases and boxes, 

 even where there is considerable sun. 

 Plants for such uses must not, however, 

 be grown in a heavily shaded house or 

 they are sure to burn more or less. 

 If you have a spare piece of bench you 

 can plant out a lot of runners and 

 have splendid stock to pot up in early 

 fall. If you have neither the bench 

 nor the young plants, why not buy in 

 some young stock now from small pots 

 and keep growing them on through the 

 summer? They will net good money 

 through the fall and winter, as there 

 never seems to be any surplus of good 

 Boston ferns. Do not give the plants, 

 when you are potting them along, a 

 light compost containing a lot of leaf- 

 mold; they like some good, fibrous loam 

 and some well decayed manure incor- 

 porated with it. 



Amaryllis. 



It is pleasing to see that amaryllises 

 are gradually becoming of more com- 

 mercial importance, not so much as pot 

 plants, but for cutting. The flowering 

 season is now practically over, but 

 the plants must not be neglected. Give 

 them a light bench and give an ample 

 supply of water, also affording liquid 

 manure when the pots are full of roots. 

 It is a too common practice, as soon 

 as the flowering season is over, to 

 throw the pots under the benches and 

 leave them there until it is time for 

 the spikes to appear another season. 

 It is impossible to get decent flower 

 spikes with such treatment. If a plant 

 is worth growing at all, it is worth 

 growing well. Amaryllises, if properly 

 treated, produce magnificent spikes and 

 flowers. They will naturally keep 

 green foliage until November, some- 

 times right through the winter, and 

 such plants will produce spikes of a 

 strength which will astonish anyone 

 who has been previously adopting the 

 below-the-bench drying-off method. 



About the end of May put a bed of 

 leaves, or leaves and manure, in a cold- 

 irame. In this plunge your amaryllises 

 to the brims of the pots. Keep the 

 sashes elevated top and bottom all the 

 time, so as to allow a good circulation 

 ot air among them, and give the glass 

 a nttle shade. Treated thus the plants 

 will produce bulbs of surprising size, 

 vastly better than can be had on plants 

 ben"h *^°°^ °° * ^°* greenhouse 

 Nerines. 



ui7.^^v^®^"*^*"l nerines, or Guernsey 

 somf' Tf^ completed their growth and 

 de^.v ir***^ foliage will soSn start to 

 hm,S*o^®P.^^« P^^'^*^ i° a cold green- 

 i^ouse or coldframe. Give a graduaUy 



docreasing water supply as the foliage 

 disripi>0!ars; then keep them perfectly 

 dry. In order to flower nerines well 

 the plants must be well potbound and 

 allowed to have a thorough baking 

 through the summer. Keep the plants 

 in a coldframe, not shading the glass 

 at all, and allow the hot sun to bake 

 them all summer. Leave them here 

 until flower spikes begin to peep in 

 early September, when the plants can 

 be removed to a greenhouse bench to 

 expand. 



Canterbury Bells. 



While Canterbury bells appear to a 

 limited extent at Easter each year, 

 they are vastly better later in the sea- 

 son. For Memorial day trade they are 

 splendid, either for selling in pots or 

 for cutting. Plants grown in pots are 

 greatly superior to those grown out- 

 doors. The plants should be staked 

 out now and given an ordinary green- 

 house temperature. No one who has 

 not grown good sized clumps in pots 

 can form any idea of what superb 



plants these Canterbury bells make. 

 The single pink and white are the two 

 best sorts to grow. The doubles are too 

 heavy, also the hose in hose, or caly- 

 Canthema varieties. 



By the way, it is nearly time now to 

 sow seeds to produce strong plants for 

 another season. 



Planting Out Sweet Peas. 



Everyone should have been able to 

 sow some sweet peas outdoors before 

 now, and the weather has now become 

 sufficiently settled so that plants 

 started in pots can be planted out. 

 Before planting out be sure they have 

 been gradually hardened off. Get the 

 supports in position. Birch, wild 

 " cherry or some other brush is the best 

 support, but wire netting answers well, 

 provided it is of coarse mesh and is 

 well supported. It will not harm 

 hardened peas if they should get one 

 or two light freezings, but it will harm 

 them if they are left in the pots until 

 the roots become matted. Single plants 

 can go out six to twelve inches apart 

 in the rows. The plants will soon cover 

 their supports at the wider distance 

 and will produce much stronger flower 

 spikes. For purely exhibition purposes 

 the plan now adopted is to train the 

 plants to single stems, rubbing off all 

 side growths. In this way long- 

 stemmed stalks can be had, provided, 

 of course, that the ground has been well 

 prepared in advance. 



GLADIOLI IN FLORIDA. 



I am interested in the question of 

 growing gladioli here, a little north of 

 the center of Florida, for winter bloom- 

 ing. Can you give me full information 

 regarding the growing of them in the 

 south, stating when the bulbs should 

 be planted and all about their caret I 

 have a small plant house that I can 

 heat. We have occasional frosts here, 

 with the mercury as low as 25 degrees. 

 Nearly all the demand for flowers here 

 is in winter and early spring, our con- 

 ditions being entirely different from 

 those in the north. Can you give me 

 any information about the growing of 

 peonies here? E. H. H. — Fla. 



down to 25 degrees from time to time. 

 The small bulbs which are grown into 

 the flowering bulbs are handled in the 

 same way as in the north, except that 

 it requires less time for them to grow 

 into flowering bulbs. 



I have never seen peonies grown 

 south of the Appalachian mountains. 

 They do pretty well along the foothills 

 at an altitude of about 1,000 or 1,200 

 feet in northern Georgia and in South 

 Carolina. In Florida they usually fail 

 to produce good flowers. 



P. H. Rolfs. 



Gladioli are planted to a considerable 

 extent in Florida. They occur in al- 

 most every community of the state, 

 ranging from Fensacola to Miami. 



If the bulbs are set out in the fall, 

 say about October 1, they will come to 

 bloom in the early spring, March or 

 April. This is advisable for the south- 

 ern part of the state. For the northern 

 part of the state it would be advisable 

 to plant them a little later. The flo- 

 rists of the state handle them in the 

 open. T, K. Godbey, of Waldo, in 

 northern Florida, had 100,000 or more 

 of the gladioli blooming in the open 

 last year and sold the blooms in the 

 north. They make fine specimens when 

 properly handled. The temperature in 

 the region that I have referred to goes 



DISEASED OLADIOLUS COBMS. 



I am sending you under separate 

 cover a few gladiolus bulbs. Can you 

 tell me what is the matter with them 

 and whether they need any sort of 

 treatment before being planted? What 

 kind of treatment, if any, is needed? 

 C. G. B. 



The three corms sent are affected 

 with what is commonly known as scab. 

 This trouble should not be confused 

 with the rots, which are so commonly 

 met with. To my knowledge, but little 

 work has been done upon this disease 

 and there is practically no available 

 information. 



Observations made upon this trouble, 

 lead me to believe that it does not 

 greatly decrease the value of the 

 corms. That the lesions on the conns 

 do not increase during storage seems 



